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Enlarge ImageRequest to buy this photoFile Image“All one has to do now is go to the governor and say, ‘I want a statue of Donald Duck on the Statehouse grounds’ and if he gets convinced of it, boom!” said Capitol Square Review and Advisory Board President Richard H. Finan, about Gov. John Kasich’s desire for a Holocaust memorial at the Statehouse.

The turf battle over a Holocaust memorial at the Ohio Statehouse now involves Donald Duck.

And members of Ohio’s Jewish community are not happy about it.

Gov. John Kasich’s proposal for a memorial to Ohio survivors of the World War II Holocaust and
their liberators ran afoul of Richard H. Finan of Cincinnati, former Ohio Senate president and
current president of the Capitol Square Review and Advisory Board. Finan questions the
appropriateness of the memorial for the Statehouse.

In response to a
Dispatch story, Finan complained that Kasich bypassed his agency that oversees the
Statehouse and grounds
. He told reporters that Kasich’s push declares “open season” for groups lobbying for
adding statues and memorials at the Statehouse.

“All one has to do now is go to the governor and say, ‘I want a statue of Donald Duck on the
Statehouse grounds’ and if he gets convinced of it, boom!” Finan said.

Joyce Garver Keller, executive director of Ohio Jewish Communities, who has been helping
coordinate plans for the memorial for several months, called Finan’s comments “very distressing”
and “insensitive on so many levels.”

“First, we didn’t go to the governor and ask to build the memorial,” Keller said. “Second, it’s
(a) bad comparison to compare a memorial for the Holocaust and a statue of Donald Duck.

“Lastly, no governor, including this governor, would disrespect the Statehouse grounds.”

She added: “This Friday, Jews around the world will celebrate Passover and leaving the pharaoh
behind. We don’t have a pharaoh anymore.”

There is some urgency to moving ahead with a memorial, Keller said. Ohio has at most 1,800
living Holocaust survivors. Their average age is 85.

Legislation signed on Friday by Kasich calls for an outside memorial “to victims of the
Holocaust and to the Ohioans who participated in the liberation of the death camps during World War
II.” The location of the memorial, how it will look and the cost are not specified. The state will
pay for preliminary site work; private funds are to cover the rest.

The idea sprang from Kasich on May 4 while attending the annual Statehouse Holocaust memorial
observance. This year’s observance is on April 17.